


The Hat Trick

by mikkary



Category: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: Gen, Heist, Hoaxes, Inspired by Real Events, M/M, Modern Art, and i'm the only one laughing, this fic has become a private joke between me and Evelyn Waugh's ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 19:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17049296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkary/pseuds/mikkary
Summary: A prankster, an art thief, and Anthony Blanche walk into a gallery. Somehow, everyone leaves happy.





	The Hat Trick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/gifts).



**hat trick** (noun) - three successes of the same kind, especially consecutive ones within a limited period; ( _in cricket_ ) the taking of three wickets by the same bowler with successive balls

*

“ _I seemed to me a charade rather than a hoax since everyone appeared to be in the secret. Nobody betrayed it: to some extent the hoaxers were perhaps hoaxed in thinking anyone deceived._ ”

— Bryan Guinness, _Potpourri from the Thirties_

*

Anthony Blanche has been back from the continent for a matter of hours only he already regrets it. But one must submit to the discomfort of English weather and English society every once in a while so that one can truly appreciate how wonderful it is to be anywhere else. Especially in spring which, in London, is dreary and gray. There’s a fine mist in the air that renders umbrellas superfluous: one will end up damp all over no matter what; the best course of action is to remain inside.

So Blanche does. He squirrels himself away at Randolph’s, an old haunt, and orders himself a big lunch and the _Sunday_ _Times_ , as if he’s some Oxford don. It’s entirely unsurprising when as he skims the society page, someone flops into the armchair across from him.

“Anthony Blanche, you old bolshie! Speak of the devil,” Howard Claiborne says, in a loud voice that draws every eye. Though it’s not clear if it’s Claiborne’s high, clear voice that catches diners’ attention, or his raffish pink shirt and flannel suit, totally inappropriate for both the season and the weather. He’s accompanied by a man that Blanche doesn’t know, gaunt and dressed in black, who, at Claiborne’s impatient gesture, takes up the last remaining seat. “I was just telling Anatoly about you,” and, oh, of course he’s Russian. “Anatoly, Anthony Blanche; Blanche, Anatoly Nikolayev.”

Reluctantly, Blanche folds up his copy of the times. “Ch-charmed,” he says, bored.

“Likewise.” Nikolayev speaks with a slight lisp.

Claiborne nods through their introductions and then leans forward again, already picking up the conversation. He’s the kind of person who always wants something. Busy, demanding, so very British, but not quite as bad as Boy Mulcaster or Blanche’s other Eton “chums.”  They’d never met there, in the short time Blanche had attended; Claiborne was a few years younger. They’d met later, while Blanche was still at Oxford, at a party hosted by a mutual friend. “You’re just the man we wanted to see,” Claiborne says with a conspiratorial air. “We’re planning a special exhibition, with a gallery space and everything, opening next week.”

Blanche didn’t know that Claiborne was such a patron of the arts. Perhaps this Russian boy has turned him around. He looks from one to the other. “And the artist?”

Claiborne raises his eyebrows, looking mirthful. “Bruno Hat. English, of German extraction. Heretofore undiscovered. A real, homegrown, _English_ talent. A new star.”

Blanche is unimpressed. “And the p-paintings, my dear? Are they any good at all?”

“In progress.”

“In progress?”

Claiborne glances around as if to make sure no one is watching — or to make sure that everyone is watching — then taps the side of his nose, giving Blanche a wink. “In progress, at my flat. Bruno Hat is going to make quite a splash. The press is already in a tizzy over this genuinely English mind. It’s going to be a fabulous success.”

Blanche has seen hoaxes pulled off — he has orchestrated some himself. He’s no stranger to subterfuge or to scandal and this… this is so thoroughly English in its mundanity. “Indeed,” he says.

Nikolayev has that typical Russian air of someone who always has something to prove. Now he leans forward a bit and says in his lisping accent, “It’s not something you could pull off in Paris, you know.”

Blanche thinks about Tristan Tzara’s ridiculous Charlie Chaplin hoax, which got André _so_ upset. He thinks about Duchamp, too, and dozens of other examples, but merely leans back in his chair and offers a languid, “If you s-say so.” This is a London event inasmuch as it’s too trite to even make a splash in Paris. “But tell me, my dears, what is the _goal_ of this little escapade?”

“To fool the press,” Claiborne says. And yes, to him it’s just an English prank, a schoolboy’s jest for the society pages. There is nothing surprising there.

Blanche looks at Nikolayev. “To question what is Art,” the Russian says, his eyes fervent. It’s inelegantly worded but much more respectable. Perhaps Claiborne is the muscle behind this event, but this Nikolayev fellow is the brains. It’s a pity he’s stuck in London and not in Paris or Berlin where he’d belong.

Blanche gives him a nod. If nothing else, this is an interesting diversion for his short trip to England. And here he thought all he had to look forward to was lawyers and banks. “Well, mum’s the word, I suppose. But show me this studio of yours, Claiborne. Perhaps you _do_ have the soul of an artist after all.”

*

Blanche first meets Jean-François at a club, _members only_ , that he frequents every time he’s in London. It’s a basement bar, where dusky afternoon light filters in from high, grated windows and catches on the tarnished brass inlay of the tables and the bar. Colored glass lights in the corners bathe everything in shades of red and amber, triangles of light spilling out to catch one’s eye. Regulars know exactly where to sit so that the light will be most flattering on blond hair or slim wrists; on the other hand, they also know which tables are the darkest, the most private.

Blanche orders himself an _apéritif_ and sits down at the bar, looking around at the other patrons. This is a nice place to spend one’s time as one adjusts back to English dreariness, English decorum. There’s a different kind of decorum here, one that suits Blanche quite nicely. He takes his glass of _porto_ and sips the fruity, fortified wine, when the sound of the front door catches his attention and he looks up at the stairs.

There is a man there, walking down into the bar. The dusty, light from the high, barred windows frames the man’s body in a series of squares: a shoulder here, a thigh there, all curves, angles, tailored black fabric, and Blanche spares a moment to wonder whether this was the staircase Duchamp had in mind when he painted his nude.

In a further flight of fancy, Blanche wonders if this man could have been Duchamp’s nude. He is a young man, younger than Blanche, with tanned skin and a shock of wavy black hair. He has a straight nose, full lips, doe eyes, and the shadow of a moustache on his upper lip.

The man ignores the mostly empty bar and sits down next to Blanche. The bartender hands him a cocktail before he has to order. It’s an impressive display. More impressive is the way that the man’s dark eyes look Blanche over, almost smirking, before he says, in a thick French accent, “You are Anthony Blanche, no?”

Blanche is used to being recognized on sight by strangers in various places — Cannes, Tangiers, Paris, Oxford. It has been both a blessing and a great ennui. Right now, it is a blessing. “Indeed, my d-dear,” he says. “Though I don’t believe we’ve met before. I like to think I would have remembered a f-f-face as striking as yours.”

“ _Monsieur Blanche_ ,” the man says in that delicious drawl that only the truly _Parisian_ can manage, as though he’s exhaling his words on a lazy cloud of cigarette smoke. “Call me Jean-François. It is my very great pleasure.” And he bows over Blanche’s hand as if Blanche were a lady.

Blanche raises his eyebrows at the display, and a flicker of interest, dampened thus far by the gloomy English weather, stirs in the pit of his stomach. “Please,” he says. “Call me Antoine.”

“Antoine,” Jean-François says, rolling Blanche’s name around in his mouth like the finest wine. It’s delicious and positively obscene. Blanche leans a little closer. “I was told you know about art. So, can you tell me where one finds the best art in London?”

It was an odd question in its naïveté, especially coming from someone like Jean-François. But after his conversation with Claiborne and Nikolayev, Blanche has art on the brain. And he’s always happy to pontificate. “My dear, _avec plaisir_.”

*

In the end, Blanche invites Jean-François to accompany him for the private viewing of Bruno Hat’s _oeuvre_ , which has come together quite surprisingly in canvas easels around Claiborne’s apartment. It makes Blanch wonder if Claiborne doesn’t secretly want to become some sort of artist, if this isn’t his send up to such an elitist world.

If it is, it’s much too late; all of this nonsense has already been done — and done better — by real artists on the Continent.

The paintings are… paintings. Blanche walks Jean-François through the first room of galleries, navigating adroitly around art critics, society women with their big hats, groups of students loudly discussing German expressionism and the theory of forms. He passes Claiborne, who winks at him. Or perhaps he winks at Jean-François, who is also looking in his direction.

“He is your friend?” Jean-François asks, glancing over at Blanche with his beautiful dark eyes.

“Not quite,” Blanche says; he would never be so alone in the world as to stoop to consider Claiborne a friend.

“The artist?” Jean-François suggests, being very charitable in his opinion of Claiborne.

Blanche considers that for a moment, and thinks about letting Jean-François in to the joke. But there’s something _strange_ about the way that Jean-François talks about art. Something quite curious. And Blanche isn’t so smitten that he’ll ruin a good joke. “Something like that,” he says.

Jean-François raises his eyebrows, glances around the room again, and looks thoughtful. “Well. The paintings are not so bad.”

“You have no eye for art, my d-darling,” Blanche says, which makes Jean-François laugh.

They move to the second room of the gallery, where Claiborne has stashed “Bruno Hat’s” particularly daring _oeuvres_. Blanche sees Nikolayev, Claiborne’s Russian poet, in the corner having an earnest discussion with a few other literary types, all dressed in black. He leads Jean-François directly to his _least_ favorite painting.

“This one is p-particularly noisome,” he says, gesturing to _Still Life with Pears_ , a blocky blue and gray painting. It was “t-t-truly terrible,” he’d told Howard Claiborne, who was scrubbing paint from his fingers with isopropyl alcohol. Blanche had waved a hand in front of his face to clear the fumes and continued: “The worst of a bad lot.”

Claiborne had laughed him off and told him that the critics would play right into his hand: “It’s a Cezanne, but not quite. Better than Picasso, I daresay.” And perhaps he was right and the world was madder than Blanche imagined, because he and Jean-François were only two of a multitude of people clustered around the painting.

“It’s almost like Cezanne,” one of them says.

“Cezanne, if he had a Blue Period like Picasso,” another agrees.

It’s not clear whether they’re all dupes, staring at this awful painting, or whether they’re all in on Claiborne’s antics and think everyone else is a dupe. Perhaps Nikolayev will write some tract about this experience, making the gallery a metaphor for High Society, where everyone believes they know the truth and the people around them are the fools. Perhaps it will be a metaphor for Art itself — art is only such when dupes agree to its value. Everything in Blanche rebels against that argument.

“This ‘Bruno Hat’ is… an interesting artist,” Jean-François ventures, looking around again. This time he pays more attention to the spectators than the painting, and there’s an amused twist to his supple mouth.

Ah, Jean-François. Who talks about art like it is something he can hold in his hands, who is, perhaps, the biggest dupe of them all. “If only you knew,” Blanche says and leads him out of the gallery, past all the fools with their hats and their notebooks and their false senses of superiority, into the gray London afternoon. That world is theirs, his and Jean-François; he will leave Bruno Hat to the rest of them.

*

Eventually — as night falls — Jean-François takes his leave, saying he has a prior engagement; eventually, Blanche finds himself wandering back to Claiborne’s gallery space, wondering what the London public has made of Bruno Hat’s debut.

The gallery is empty; it’s just Claiborne and Nikolayev and a few of their set, drinking sherry in the antechamber and toasting their success. Blanche accepts a glass and then squeezes past them, into the gallery proper. He looks around the first room, sipping his drink. In the empty room with its dimmed lights, Bruno Hat’s paints aren’t such an affront to the senses. Perhaps they could belong in a museum someday, in the back, where they put all the other paintings not quite good enough to warrant public display.

Blanche sips his sherry and wanders to the next room, then stops in the doorway. There is a man there with a razor in hand, in the process of carefully detaching _Still Life with Pears_ from its wooden frame. Once the canvas is fully separated, the thief begins to slowly, painstakingly, roll it up.

In his storied life, Blanche has never witnessed an art theft in person, and so he settles down in the doorway to watch. But he must make some noise, some rustle or cough that gives him away, because the thief turns around suddenly to meet his eyes. Of course, it is Jean-François. No part of Blanche is surprised.

“Hullo,” he offers. Something about Jean-François brings out the Etonian in him more than Eton ever could.

“Antoine,” Jean-François says in that delightfully Parisian drawl, saturated with ennui even when caught, as it were, in _flagrante delicto_. As if they are meeting in a cafe on the Boulevard Saint-Germain rather than this deserted London gallery. As if they are meeting in a bar, in a boudoir. “How pleasant to be seeing you here.” He wears a cap and a black jacket, like one of Nikolayev's poets, and the now-empty wooden canvas frame of  _Still Life with Pears_ outlines his head like a rectangular halo.

“And how p-p-positively unsurprising, to be seeing you.” Blanche has known, since the beginning, that Jean-François is not who he seems. He wasn't expecting him to be quite so criminal, but that only increases Blanche's attraction. It is a little disappointing, his bad taste, though. “I suppose this means you won’t be c-coming around the club anymore.”

Jean-François raised his eyebrows as his delightfully expressive mouth twists into a bit of a smile. But before he could respond, Claiborne calls out from building entrance. “Blanche, what are you doing in there? Busy contemplating the fallacies of Modern Art?”

The conspiratorial intimacy between Blanche and Jean-François vanishes like a soap bubble that has floated too long and too heavy in the air. Face blank once more, Jean-François gives him a curt nod. 

“Remember when I told you that you had no eye for art?” Blanche asks him, unable _not_ to get the last word. “Keep an eye on the papers tomorrow, my d-d-darling.”

That half-smile returns to Jean-François’s face, and he looks once more as if he is about to speak. But the mundane — in the form of Claiborne’s voice — advances once more into their little retreat.

“Blanche?” Claiborne calls, tromping into the front room of the gallery. He turns around, moving into the doorway to block Claiborne’s view of the space. “What’s the hold-up?” Claiborne demanded, craning over Blanche’s shoulder. The man is damnably tall. Damnably loud. “Bloody hell—”

Blanche turns around again, thinking that perhaps Jean-François is still there, perhaps the game, whatever game they are playing, is up. But the room is empty now, aside from the worthless paintings and one now-empty canvas frame in pride of place.

“I’ll be damned.” Claiborne gives a hearty laugh. “Even the criminals fell for it.”

*

Claiborne gets the police involved, and the presses, and Blanche, witness _par excellence_ , amuses himself by giving varied and contradictory descriptions of the thief to anyone who asks him. The press are going to paint him something like some modern day A. J. Raffles. And does that make Blanche into Bunny?

He’s much too smart for that, he thinks, but even he isn’t expecting it when the concierge at his Mayfair hotel tells him, “Excuse me, sir? A man came by earlier with a package for you. We left it up in your room.”

Blanche raises his eyebrows. “A man?” He’s not expecting anything, and in his experience not all surprises that begin this way are delightful.

The concierge nods. “Short, hair slicked back, very French. Is that alright, sir?”

Blanche’s eyebrows remain up, but in a look of delight. “It’s p-perfectly alright,” he said, gives the man a five-pound note for his trouble, and heads to the elevator.

The package is large and square, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Blanche is already fairly certain of what it contains, but he gives a loud laugh anyway when the last of the paper falls away and reveals Bruno Hat’s chef d’oeuvre, _Still Life with Pears_ , now in its own gilded frame.

The frame was probably worth more than the painting itself, and that made Blanche laugh even louder. He was so lost to his hilarity that he almost missed the folded note, written in a neat, looping hand on a scrap of hotel paper: 

 _My dearest Antoine,  
__Perhaps this token of affection, from the most modern of artists, will improve your taste in art.  
__Your wise counsel has certainly improved mine_.  
_À la prochaine,  
__J-F._

*

 

Bruno Hat, _Still Life with Pears_ (1929)

**Author's Note:**

> Writing historical fiction as a historian is ten thousand kinds of nervewracking. I did an obscene amount of research for this fic (research being a tool for procrastination as well) and I hope it paid off in some way, at least. The first and most delightful thing I found out is that _[Bruno Hat is real](http://www.leicestergalleries.com/19th-20th-century-paintings/d/still-life-with-pears/10464)_ — a scandal cooked up for publicity by Brian Howard, Evelyn Waugh's Oxford friend and two-thirds of the inspiration for Anthony Blanche. I had art crime on the brain when I was starting to plot out this fic; once I found out about this "Hat trick" I couldn't move on. I stuck Brian Howard in the story as Howard Claiborne, because I don't think Blanche has the will or the inclination to pull off such a caper. And why is there a Russian poet hanging around him? I don't know. It's an ambiguous time in the 1920s or 1930s. There are Russian poets everywhere and I did too much research on Surrealism before starting to write. And who is Jean-François, really? Perhaps he's such a good thief that we'll never know.
> 
> I also spent an absurd amount of time trying to figure out how Blanche would feel about 1) surrealism, 2) Dada, and 3) communism. This led to a brief interlude in which I tried, without reading any autobiographical writing, to figure out how Evelyn Waugh would have felt about these things, and then I gave up, because the Death Of The Author happened long ago and most of Waugh's opinions are garbage anyway. As of yet I have no conclusive opinion about Blanche except that I deeply believe he'd at least pretend to be someone who is on first-name terms with André Breton. (And the Tzara/Chaplin/Breton incident is mentioned in passing in [Tristan Tzara's wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Tzara#Paris_Dada).) In a broader sense, it was awfully difficult to get a handle on Blanche's voice. I like to consider him an unreliable narrator of his own experience. When you're smart and good at reading people and have a lot of life experience, it's easy to look around you and think that everyone else is deluding themselves. But maybe by thinking so little of other people, you're also deluding yourself. And that's the real Bruno Hat of the matter.


End file.
